Hugh Cook - The wizards and the warriors

'No,' said Garash. 'You have the brains. You could do with a little extra.'

'Peace, children,' said Alish.

Soon they could see the stranger was a hunter, mounted on a kind of shaggy, heavy-bodied ox. He observed them from the river bank without any sign of curiosity. He was an old man with dirty blond hair now fading white, that hair being plaited into a heavy rope which hung down his back.

'Hey,' yelled Gorn. if that animal's female, she can earn herself some money.'

No answer.

'Well, if it's male, we can still do business,' shouted Gorn. it's been a long time. My friends are a bunch of prudes, no fun at all after sunset.'

No answer.

'How about yourself, then? You don't want to die a virgin, do you?' Even this sally raised not a flicker of interest in the old man's timebeaten face. The ox snorted, stamped one hoof, then wheeled away from the river and set off toward the west.

'The locals seem rather snobbish,' said Garash. i don't know,' said Hearst. 'He might come back with friends to invite us to a feast – with our livers and lights as the main course.'

'No,' said Blackwood.

From the behaviour he had seen, Blackwood knew that the old man had no interest in strangers, being content with his own universe, with the dull flat plains which he roamed, with his clothes the shades of earth and dung, his spear ornamented with irregular strips of free-hanging cloth, and the conversation of the wind-chimes which hung from his stirrups and tinkled as the ox lumbered westwards.

They argued it out as they drifted downriver, with Gorn boasting vigorously about what he could do with a brace of native women or even – and it was hard to tell if he was joking – the native cattle.

But no invitations came to feast – or be feasted on.

Autumn rains were swelling the waters by the time the travellers reached the Lanmarthen Marshes, where the river lost itself in a wilderness of swampgrass and water-rooted trees. Here, however, lived Melski families, and Blackwood was able to enlist their help for guidance through the marshes; the Melski confirmed that it was indeed, despite the continuing fine weather, autumn.

Once free of the marshes, they followed the Amodeo River through a barren land where no grass grew, and thus came to the city of Kalatanastral, the city of glass. It was built on a rectangular pattern, three leagues by three, with a grid of streets running north-south and east-west. The buildings were, as the legends said, of glass, but, as the travellers discovered, there were no ghosts in that city; they did not hear a single note of the fabled Dawn Songs.

Kalatanastral was a dead place in a dead land. Most of its glass buildings were sealed against the light; others were guarded by oblate spheroids of steel mounted on delicate thin-stemmed legs, half-sentient machineries from the Days of Wrath. The intruders knew better than to challenge those guardians.

If they followed the Amodeo River further, it would take them some hundred leagues or so north-east to the little fishing town of Brine and the ocean that washed against the eastern shores of Argan. However, their way now led north-west, over the barrens to the Ringwall Mountains, and across those mountains to the Central Plateau and Stronghold Handfast, where they would have to challenge the wizard Heenmor for possession of the death-stone.

Garash, as ever, spent much time in meditation; when he dreamed, the death-stone always figured in his dreams, and he knew the task of taking it for his own use would be safer and easier now that he no longer had to contend with Phyphor – or, for that matter, with Miphon.

How fares the sun?

Miphon wondered about that as he mumbled down another mouthful of siege dust. He also wondered if iron filings might make a pleasant change from a diet of siege dust: he rather suspected they might.

The red bottle held stone urns packed with enough siege dust to feed him for centuries. There was water, too. He would not starve, or die of thirst. Prince Comedo would die before Miphon did: age would kill the man before it killed the wizard.

With Comedo dead, Miphon would be left with no way of escape, unless he cared to choose the quick death offered by a drop-shaft. He would have no chance to get his hands on the ring commanding the green bottle. He would live on, mumbling siege dust, sipping water and dreaming of the sun. In time, no doubt he would forget what the sun looked like. Perhaps one day someone entering the bottle with another magic ring would find him, and then the story would be told:

– In a red bottle in a green bottle in a country where I, my children, have never been, sat a greybeard wizard who was four thousand years old…

Four thousand years! Yes, he could rot here that long – or longer. This was worse than the journey underground, for their river journey had promised them that before too long they would meet with death or deliverance. And there had at least been other people, other voices.

Miphon finished his meal, such as it was, and picked up his bow, which was one of many – the red bottle, packed with siege dust, water and weapons, must have been built to house an army. Comedo had sometimes visited Miphon at the portcullis, but Miphon's most strenuous diplomacies – pleas, threats, cajoleries – had achieved nothing. Now he was going to try murder.

The bowstring was slightly sticky with preservative grease that had protected it… for how long? It was difficult to bend the bow to string it.

There: it was done.

He was on the third level of the red bottle, with all the room he needed for target practice. He nocked an arrow, drew the bow and aimed at one of the faceless helmets that hung around the walls. He loosed the arrow.

The bowstring vibrated, stinging his thumb. The arrow clattered into a rack of throwing spears. The next one went wide, and the third caroomed off the ceiling. Miphon swore.

He had always thought of himself as a practical person, particularly since the months on the Salt Road when he had dealt with tasks of tending fires, finding food for the donkey and cooking. But those were routine tasks which he had learnt – however painfully -years ago. Archery was a new skill which he would have to master, and no amount of intellectual analysis would make the labour shorter.

To be trapped in the bottle where magic was useless was like being crippled. He had not realised he had relied so heavily on magic.

He fired another arrow. It slammed into a helmet -the wrong helmet.

– In a green bottle.

– In a green bottle…

– In a green bottle in a country where I, my children, have never been, sat a greybeard wizard. The wizard had a red bottle but he was trapped in a greenbottle, greenbottle redbottle, no sun no wind no rain and never never never so much as to hear or see a bluebottle… – In a green bottle…

Miphon had for years thought of himself as a hunter because of his love of the chase, of the moment of mastery when the wing high in flight hesitates, circles, then dips. However, he lacked the hunter's patience. Now, waiting in the shadows behind the portcullis, with arrow nocked, he suffered.

He knew Hearst or Gorn or Alish would have been patient as death, despite creaking knees, aching backs, stiff necks and rumbling stomachs. They would have waited. Could a wizard do less?

This wizard, lulled by the unvarying green glow of the bottle, caught himself falling asleep. That would never do. If Comedo came sniffing down those stairs and saw Miphon asleep behind the portcullis with bow and arrow at the ready, he would never come back.

Miphon would only have one chance. He would have to kill with the first shot. Then drag Comedo's body to the portcullis so he could take the ring from Comedo's finger. That would be easy enough to do: tie a rope to a spear then hurl the spear into the corpse.